The waning days of the British Occupation of Cyprus were times filled with revolutionary zeal and guerilla attacks by Cypriots demanding independence. For the British, Cyprus represented one of the last colonies in the Empire, and they believed that its loss at the hands of “a few insurgents” would cause further damage to Britain’s waning international prestige. By January 1956, the British and the Cypriots were in their third year of a terrorist “Emergency.” Major Hal Treherne, a career soldier from a family of career soldiers, is assigned the job of patrolling villages in the south of Cyprus, conducting searches, and identifying suspects so that they can be turned over to the Special Investigations Branch for interrogation. This very readable, fast-paced narrative includes action scenes so vivid they sometimes resemble films. Hal’s life is one emergency after another, one battle after another, one moral quandary after another, and the reader quickly identifies with him in his emotional turmoil.
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The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest is a fine conclusion to the Millenium Trilogy, tying up the loose ends that have carried over for three novels and kept viewers around the world panting for the next installment. Though the novel is complex, it is the best and most exciting of the three–and highly rewarding since it builds on all the action that has gone before, further developing the characters we have come to love. Lisbeth Salander, the focus of all three novels, is hospitalized and kept in isolation for virtually the entire six hundred pages here, but she is a looming presence throughout, and when it becomes clear that she will have to face trial for some of the murders in The Girl Who Played With Fire, Mikael Blomqvist, a mentor, finds a way to unleash her formidable, secret skills as a hacker. The final resolution is a bittersweet experience–hugely rewarding because the important issues are resolved, but immensely sad because there will be no more books in the series.
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Though Lady Susan is considered part of Jane Austen’s “juvenilia,” having been written ca. 1805, it was not published till well after Jane Austen’s death and is still not counted among her “six novels.” In fact, this seventh novel, though not as thoughtful or thought-provoking as the “famous six,” is one of her wittiest and most spirited. Written in epistolary style, it is the story of Lady Susan, a beautiful, recent widow with no conscience, a woman who is determined to do exactly what she wants to do, to charm and/or seduce any man who appeals to her, and to secure a proper marriage for her teenage daughter, whom she considers both unintelligent and lacking in charm.
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In this somewhat atypical Jane Austen novel, Austen abandons her precise characterization and carefully constructed plots, usually designed to illustrate specific ethical and social dilemmas, and presents a much broader, more complex picture of early nineteenth century life. Though the polite behavior of the middle and upper classes is always a focus of Austen, and this novel is no exception, she is more analytical of society as a whole here, casting a critical eye on moral issues which allow the upper class to perpetuate itself. Fanny Price, the main character, is the daughter of a genteel woman who married for love but soon found herself in poverty. When Fanny’s aunt and uncle, the wealthy owners of Mansfield Park, invite Fanny alone, of all the children, to live with them, Fanny enters a new world, where she is educated, clothed, and housed, but always regarded as an “outsider.”
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Anne Elliot, age twenty-seven as the book opens, is an older than usual heroine for Austen. As a very young woman, she had been deeply in love with Frederick Wentworth, a handsome young naval officer of no fortune and uncertain prospects who loved her deeply. The two became engaged, but Lady Russell, acting on behalf of Anne’s deceased mother, persuaded Anne to break off her engagement, convincing her that Wentworth could never be happy within their elegant family or make her happy, since she would be an outcast from the family and from the society she had always known. Anne has forever regretted the fact that she allowed herself to be persuaded, and for the past eight years has not been attracted to anyone else, turning down a marriage proposal which had been regarded as ideal. When Sir Walter Elliot, in dire financial straits, decides to lease Kellynch to Admiral Croft and remove the family to Bath, Anne has no idea that this will bring Frederick Wentworth back into her life. Wentworth is the brother-in-law of Admiral Croft, who has moved into Kellynch.
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